Flight number record
DL 2261
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Las Vegas
- Route
- MSP → LAS
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2261, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2261 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2261's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 118 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When DL 2261 flies
DL 2261 flies MSP to LAS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 129 of 365 flights, with 07:05 (110 flights) and 06:55 (77 flights) next.
- Departs 07:00129 flights35.3%
- Departs 07:05110 flights30.1%
- Departs 06:5577 flights21.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2261 runs level with that at 89.1%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 2261 next to MSP to LAS
Every carrier on MSP to LAS combined arrived on time 80.1% of the time across 2,086 flights, so DL 2261 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,951 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2261 | 365 | 89.1% | 45 min | 1.37% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–LAS | 1,951 | 79.9% | 63 min | 1.08% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–LAS | 2,086 | 80.1% | 62 min | 1.05% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2261 quarter by quarter
DL 2261 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 84.3%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights91.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2261 ranged from 82.7% on Wednesday to 94.2% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2261 runs when it is late
DL 2261 often beats the schedule: 138 of 359 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 20 of the 39 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early138 flights38.4%
- Within 15 min182 flights50.7%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.5%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights1.9%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 25 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. In the other direction, 19 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LAS.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2261
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 March 2026, 3 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 March 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 January 2026 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 February 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 May 2026 | 1 hour 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 September 2025 | 1 hour 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2261 runs late
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 1,763 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 4%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,064 of the 1,763 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,763 delay minutes reported on DL 2261.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,299 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including LAS to MSP (62), but none flew often enough under DL 2261 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MSP to LAS only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking DL 2261
For a booking, DL 2261 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.1% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to LAS, every carrier and departure
- LAS to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2238 on the same route79.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2262 on the same route84.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2246 on the same route64.5%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record
- Every Delta Air Lines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
A flight number here means Delta Air Lines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.